Here is the link to the post about the types of chicken eggs we have. (The eggs are from Mrs. LeCroy's Dad's chickens.) We are incubating 41 eggs again. 35 were from the breeds above, but the other 6 were from someone Mrs. LeCroy's husband works with. His name is Danny. His chickens are Golden Comets. Hopefully we will have much more success with hatching!
We have decided to put 41 more eggs in and do it even better this time! Stayed tuned for more information about what we have done differently. We monitored the temperature all day and between 3:00 and 4:00 pm, the temperature stayed at exactly 99.5° Farhenheit. Our chicks we incubated seemed really weak this morning, so I made the decision to find a few healthy chicks. After going to Tractor Supply, we now have 8 chicks. They are on show through the webcam. They had arrived this morning through the mail to Tractor Supply and are only a day or two old. They were eating this morning and doing great. We are enjoying the cheeping and watching them find their food and water.
As far as our chicks from our incubator, we had four eggs that started pipping. The first one hatched on its own and was really weak and we do not think it will survive. The second pipped and didn't try to hatch. The third pipped and didn't hatch properly and led to it not surviving. The fourth one that pipped last night tried to zip around the shell and was starting to dry out. It couldn't hatch on it's own, so I assisted this morning before the students arrived. It had absorbed the yolk sack and it seemed that the blood vessels had receded. However, it still seems very weak. I have it separated from the other chicks so that we can monitor it. We have learned that not all hatchlings make it, and the hatching process can be very tiring for the young chick. Not all eggs hatch for different reasons. Thank you all for following our progress and supporting the learning in our classroom. We will be putting more eggs in the incubator next week and using a fan to circulate the air. We will keep you all updated on the progress we make and the changes we are making the second time around. I know we are all watching the chick cam! I can see eggs knocking and rolling around. I am thinking one is hatching right now. I see the egg rolling and feathers/foot/beak (or something) every now and then. This morning we watched our first chick hatch out of its shell. It was so exciting! We also noticed that two more haved pipped through the shell. I never realized how long it actually takes for them to hatch. Hopefully we will two more baby chicks by in the morning. Many have asked about the sponges in the incubator. After I candled them, and it started to hatch, I was afraid I let too much humidity out, and I read that adding a sponge would help increase the humidity and allow it to hatch (so the membranes wouldn't dry out). I did that yesterday morning. It seemed to help. We candled all the eggs again this morning to see if try truly did or did not have a chick inside. Out of 41, there were about 12 good ones. I picked up 1 of the last three and felt it pecking inside! 2 minutes later, it had cracked through the shell. This was at 8:30. It is 5:00pm now and it had finally knocked off a piece of the shell. It has been working so hard, pecking and resting. I can't wait to meet our little chick! Hopefully we'll have more tomorrow! First of all, know that the title is, "Things that Could Have Gone Better," instead of, "Things that Went Wrong," because it is only Day 19. The chicks aren't expected to hatch until the 21st day of incubation. This is my very first time incubating eggs, and I admit, I am and have been pretty nervous. All of us have learned so much along the way, so no matter what the outcome, this experience has been a success. Our research says that you should hear cheeping starting on Day 18, because the chick communicates with its mother. There is no cheeping to be heard from outside the incubator. So, I just still can't shake the feeling that some things could have gone better.
First of all, I think the odds were against us when South Carolina received its second snow in February. We had planned on heating the incubator on Monday and putting the eggs in on Tuesday or Wednesday. Nature had different plans, and because we were nervous about the approaching inclement weather, we decided to put the eggs in on Monday afternoon. The incubator was quick to heat up and get to the steady 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit. However, we quickly learned it takes much more time to warm 41 eggs from room temperature to the incubator's temperature. Next time, we will do everything possible to heat up the incubator on Monday and put the eggs inside on Tuesday morning. This will ensure we have time to observe the rising temperature throughout the day, and not having to stay until 5:30 that evening worrying if it will get hot enough or even too hot. Secondly, we will definitely have a hygrometer. We noticed that the temperature would definitely fluctuate, or change, when the water level was down. I would feel more confident that the humidity stayed within its expected range if we actually monitored it with the proper tool. A hygrometer measures humidity. I didn't think we needed one as long as we kept water in the correct basins. I initially tried rigging up a contraption that involved a straw taped to a funnel, which worked wonderfully (so I thought) by sticking it through the air vent hole without having to actually open the incubator and losing heat. However, since the eggs were in the egg turner, we couldn't really see the level of the water. It is quite possible that during the first week, much of the water leaked out because it wasn't getting to the proper water basin. Once we finally figured out the easiest way to add and check the water was to lift up the egg turner and find a container small enough to go under it, the air temperature became quite regulated. After we passed the first week of ups and downs related to the snow days and regulating temperature/humidity, I believe things went really well. That is, until around 1:00 pm yesterday. (That is when it was time to 'lock down' the incubator, which just means raising the humidity by adding water and taking the eggs out of the egg turner so the chicks could prepare for hatching.) We moved the thermometer to the wire rack thinking that it would be out of the way of the hatching chicks. Makes sense, right? Except Ms. Pickering noticed the air temperature was struggling to raise back to 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit. This had me completely baffled. After almost 2 hours, it was only at 90 degrees. I just couldn't figure it out. I then decided it was time to turn the temperature gauge. I turned it, walked away to work on something else, and we continued to check it on and off like this until 5:00. It had finally gotten back to 98 degrees. I decided to go home and get my kids and come back to check it. When I returned, it was too hot. I turned the temperature down, and let the air circulate. When the temperature seemed regulated, I left a little after 6:00 pm. I decided to head back over this morning to check. The temperature was a little lower. I bumped the gauge and added some water using the funnel (because I could see the water basins now that the egg turner is out). I walked away for maybe 3 minutes and when I peeked back in, the temp was down. It was then I realized that we should have placed the thermometer on top of the eggs to measure the temperature of the air, not the temperature of the water! I quickly pulled the thermometer out, dried it off, and replaced it on top of the eggs. The temperature jumped back up, but I was able to quickly act and make things right. I now feel confident that the thermometer is measuring the correct temperature (of the air and not of the water). However, I cannot speak to the air temperature from yesterday afternoon until this morning at 10:30. I only can hope that something amazing happens and these chicks hatch. That leads me to a final conclusion that life is indeed a wonder. Merrium-Webster defines wonder as something surprising, beautiful, and amazing. We are trying to do what a chicken (or any living creature) does so simply, but by using a machine instead. I just can't help but think about how many variables play into trying to incubate these eggs ourselves using a machine. Recognizing that we could have done some things better, but understanding that living creatures don't have to think about these things. Living things have natural instincts that help them know exactly what to do to create these perfect, or near perfect, conditions for these embryos to grow and then hatch or be born alive! Life is indeed astonishing. |
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